1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a cooking apparatus, and more particularly to a cooking apparatus that is capable of effectively transferring heat to food to be cooked, thus improving the energy efficiency of the cooking apparatus and reducing the cooking time of the cooking apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is generally known that meat, such as beef and pork, and processed meat, such as sausage and ham, are most delicious when cooked in a grilling manner in which food is cooked by directly applying heat to the food while putting the food on a grill. Accordingly, people are fond of having meat and processed meat cooked in the grilling manner.
In general, a cooking apparatus that grills food includes a heating unit that applies heat to food and a food support unit on which the food is put and which is partially exposed to the heating unit. The cooking apparatus functions to cook the food by directly transferring heat generated by the heating unit to the food put on the food support unit.
Thus, to grill meat such as beef, pork and mutton, meat that is cut into slices, each having a size suitable to fit on the food support unit, is put on the food support unit, typically with sauce formed of various condiments being applied thereto. Accordingly, when slices of meat mixed with sauce are heated by heat transferred from the heating unit, oil contained in the slices of meat and sauce applied to the meat drops downward.
Consequently, an oil collecting unit is provided in a body of the cooking apparatus to collect heated oil and sauce that drop downward from the slices of meat. The oil collecting unit is disposed under the food support unit to collect oil and sauce, and the heating unit is disposed between the food support unit and the oil collecting unit to cook food by applying heat to the food.
However, the conventional cooking apparatus, constructed as described above, cooks food through the use of heat that is only transferred upward from the heating unit, because the heating unit is disposed just under the food support unit. Accordingly, the conventional cooking apparatus cannot effectively transfer heat to the food, Thus, the conventional cooking apparatus has low energy efficiency and requires a lengthy cooking time.
Additionally, the conventional cooking apparatus is disadvantageous in that the food support unit is maintained at a high temperature due to the heat received from the heating unit, so that portions of food in contact with the heated food support unit burn, thus deteriorating the taste of the food and doing harm to the users' health.